Lately the addition of boost unlocked the hidden potential of the stock Gen 3 Coyote engine as it put down amazing numbers on the drag strip and the chassis dyno. Now Lund Racing has pushed a stock 2018 Mustang engine into the 9-second zone with a Whipple Superchargers Gen 5 supercharger system.
We’ll keep pushing the stock engine and transmission to their limits… — Jon Lund Jr., Lund Racing
“We chose the Whipple unit for our R&D vehicle because we knew throttle calibration with that larger throttle would need some in-house driveability testing and we wanted to really refine it and we did a centrifugal on our 2015 and liked it, but it required a converter to be competitive,” Jon Lund Jr., Lead Calibrator at Lund Racing, explained. “We knew the positive-displacement supercharger would work well with the tight stock converter right out of the gate for track testing!”
With nothing more than a Gen5 Whipple supercharger pushing 13.5 pounds of boost atop its stock engine, this 2018 Mustang ran a 9.8-second quarter mile at 144 MPH on E85. The engine and trans are stock and the car simply has the mods (see sidebar) to fuel, withstand, and hook the boosted power. (Photo Credit: Lund Racing)
While a lot of the company’s recent calibration exploits have benefitted turbo combos, the concepts aren’t that much different when applied to its in-house supercharger combo.
“Honestly, the general principles of tuning haven’t changed,” he said of tuning the blower. “Obviously there’s different driveability characteristics that have to be accounted for and we adjust for those. We also tweak the cam timing differently for positive-displacement supercharger versus turbo. Aside from those items, the transmission calibration is the same.”
In practice the results were pretty impressive. The Lund crew chipped away at the car’s elapsed time by progressing from low 10s on 93-octane pump gas to 10-flat on a mix of pump gas and MS109 race fuel to a best of 9.64 at 146 on pure corn.
“These engines are just flat-out impressive and this blower did an awesome job at performing,” the Lund Racing crew enthused after its 9.64-second pass.
“One of our calibrators, Dakota Deck, was ‘The Stig’ in the car and he said the car felt awesome on both the 9.8 and 9.6 passes,” Jon said. “He’s got a Whipple-supercharged 2012 Boss 302 that’s making over 800 rear-wheel horsepower and it’s no slouch, but the said the 10R80 in this car makes it seem so much quicker due to being able to stay in the powerband more efficiently.”
While the Gen 3 Coyote definitely a beast, that 10R80 10-speed automatic transmission is definitely the common denominator among the most potent drag-strip 2018 Mustangs. This one in particular hasn’t hit the wall yet, as these numbers were run in the heat with relatively low boost.
“We think we can probably go up in boost 3-4 more PSI safely,” Jon said. “We’re pushing around 13.5 now on the 3.625-inch pulley. We think in better air with a 3.5 pulley we could see low 9s and possibly touch 150 MPH trap as it sits.”
Beyond better air and more boost, this is still a development car, so the Lund Racing team plans to explore where few have gone so far. While most just upgrade the port injection side, there are likely some advantages to leaning on the direct-injection side of the dual-fuel system more heavily.
9-Second 2018 Mustang Mods
• Corsa cat-back exhaust
• DeatschWerks DW400 fuel pump
• G-Force 850-horsepower axles
• G-Force 3.5-inch aluminum driveshaft
• Injector Dynamics ID1050x port injectors
• JMS FuelMax fuel pump voltage booster
• Kooks long-tube headers
• Mickey Thompson ET Street R tires
• UPR Products oil separator
• Weld Racing wheels
• Whipple Gen 5 3.0-liter supercharger
Sound like this Whipple-blown 2018 Mustang might just have a few tricks left up its sleeve.